sjTasks vs Basecamp
Basecamp is a good choice for a team whose work is mostly talking: message boards, group chat, check-ins, and a to-do list alongside. It has been around a long time, it charges a flat price rather than a per-seat one, and the project page is calm. If your projects are conversations with tasks attached, it may be all you need.
sjTasks starts from the other end. The task is the unit — with a priority, an estimate, a due date and the hours logged against it — and the conversation hangs off the task. We built it for teams that need the numbers as well as the calm.
Where they differ
| Topic | Basecamp | sjTasks |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | Flat, stepped by active projects, storage and users: a Free plan, Freelancer at $25 a month, Studio at $59, Pro at $99, and an Unlimited Edition at $299 a month billed annually. | Flat, stepped by people and storage: Team at $29 a month for 15 people and 50 GB, Business at $79 for unlimited people and 500 GB. Projects are unlimited on both. |
| Clients and guests | Counted. Their page says every person you add is counted toward the user limit — 5 on Free, 20 on Freelancer — and that Studio and above have unlimited users. | Never counted. Guests — your clients — are free and unlimited on every plan, including Free. |
| Features by tier | None. The same core features are on every package, Free included; the tiers differ in active projects, storage and users. | None. Every plan does everything; you pay for room. |
| Free plan or trial | Both. A Free plan with one active project, 1 GB and up to 5 users, and a 30-day trial of the paid plans with no card up front. | A Free plan with every feature and no card — 3 people, 2 active projects, 1 GB. |
| 10 people and 20 clients | 30 counted users, which is past the 20-user cap on Freelancer, so Studio is the smallest fit: $59 a month, with up to 10 active projects. More projects than that means Pro at $99. | Team, $29 a month: 10 of 15 seats used, the 20 clients uncounted, and as many projects as you like. |
What Basecamp does that we do not
- A message board and a Campfire chat, with pings, in every project.
- Card Table, their kanban board.
- Docs & Files as a tool in its own right, and a project schedule.
- Automatic check-ins that ask your team a question on a schedule.
- Apps for every platform, as their page puts it.
- A Free plan, for one project and up to 5 people.
What we do that Basecamp does not
- A board and a list of the same project, on every plan — neither one behind a tier.
- Ask a question in plain words — "what is late for Jane this week" — and get a table back.
- Work from anywhere, on any device: a fast web app built for a phone on a bad connection, with nothing to install and nothing to update.
- Tasks that arrive by email and by Slack, and notifications you can reply to.
- A priority, an estimate and a due date on every task, and hours logged against the estimate.
- Reports across every project that answer what is late, who is overloaded, what is due next week and where you are over estimate — saved, and sent on a schedule.
- Guests never counted, on any plan, so inviting a client is never the reason you change tier.
- Unlimited projects from the smallest plan up. Our tiers step by people and storage only.
- One daily or weekly summary email that carries the content, so you can read it without signing in.
- Almost nothing is destroyed: work is canceled, projects are archived, and what an admin does delete waits 30 days in a trash.
Try it on a real project
The Free plan is every feature, your clients invited as guests at no charge, and no card. Pay only when you outgrow the room.
Start for freeBasecamp’s prices and plan details were read from their pricing page on 2026-08-30 and may have changed since; anything that page did not say is left out rather than guessed. Ours are on our pricing page. Basecamp is the name of a product that is not ours.